Declarative PDFs
that run anywhere.

A tiny box-layout DSL over pdf-lib. Flexbox-lite for server-side PDF generation in Node, Cloudflare Workers, Deno, and the browser. No WASM. No headless browser. No React.

Install See templates GitHub →

import { cleanTheme, hline, hstack, renderFlow, text, vstack } from "boxpdf";
import { PDFDocument, StandardFonts } from "pdf-lib";

const pdf = await PDFDocument.create();
const font = await pdf.embedFont(StandardFonts.Helvetica);
const bold = await pdf.embedFont(StandardFonts.HelveticaBold);
const theme = cleanTheme(font, bold);

await renderFlow(pdf, [
  vstack({ gap: 8 },
    text("Receipt #18472", theme.type.h1),
    text("May 14, 2026",     theme.type.caption)
  ),
  hline(theme.hr),
  hstack({ gap: 16 },
    text("Wool socks",   theme.type.body),
    text("$28.00",        { ...theme.type.body, font: bold, align: "right", width: 80 })
  )
]);

const bytes = await pdf.save(); // -> Uint8Array

What's in the box

Runs at the edge

Works on Cloudflare Workers without nodejs_compat or any WASM flag. Verified end-to-end with embedded Inter.

Flex-ish layout, no coordinates

vstack / hstack with padding, margin, gap, justify, align, grow, shrink. Real word-wrapping and ellipsis.

Streaming output

streamFlow emits bytes to a WritableStream as each page closes. Peak heap stays flat at any page count. A 1000-page report uses 5× less memory than renderFlow + pdf.save().

Four named themes

Drop-in cleanTheme, stripeTheme, editorialTheme, brutalistTheme. Same code restyles every template.

Multi-page flow

renderFlow paginates with atomic children. keepTogether bundles widows. Page headers and footers with { pageNumber, totalPages } built in.

Bring your own fonts

Optional boxpdf/inter ships subsetted Inter (82 KB / weight). loadFont(pdf, source) and the boxpdf font add CLI bundle any TTF as base64.

Hyperlinks, decorations, metadata

link({ href }, ...), underline, strikethrough, title / author / subject as renderFlow options.

Debug overlay

renderFlow(pdf, nodes, { debug: true }) outlines every content and margin box in red and orange. Trace layouts visually.

Tiny, tree-shakable

Core is <7 KB minified. boxpdf/inter and @pdf-lib/fontkit only load when you use them.

Four named themes

Same layout code, four aesthetics. Swap the theme and every template restyles.

Clean theme. Modern SaaS, soft borders, 8pt rounded corners — **cleanTheme** modern SaaS default

Stripe theme. Square corners, thin borders, monochrome with accent — **stripeTheme** square corners, thin borders, monochrome

Editorial theme. Times serif, warm cream, italic captions — **editorialTheme** Times serif, generous leading

Brutalist theme. Courier monospace, 2pt solid black borders — **brutalistTheme** Courier monospace, 2pt black borders

Template gallery

Production-ready documents in templates/. Copy a file, edit it for your data, ship it.

Receipt template — **Receipt** cleanTheme · 1 page templates/receipt.ts

Boarding pass template — **Boarding pass** cleanTheme · 1 page templates/boarding-pass.ts

Resume template — **Resume** editorialTheme · 2 pages templates/resume.ts

Order confirmation template — **Order confirmation** cleanTheme · 1 page templates/order-confirmation.ts

Certificate template — **Certificate** editorialTheme · landscape templates/certificate.ts

Multi-page invoice with page headers and footers — **Invoice** cleanTheme · 2 pages, header/footer, keepTogether examples/invoice.ts

Travel itinerary with two flight bands — **Itinerary** cleanTheme · two-band layout examples/itinerary.ts

Debug overlay with red content boxes and orange margin boxes — **Debug overlay demo** cleanTheme · { debug: true } examples/debug.ts

Install

npm install boxpdf pdf-lib

pdf-lib is a peer dependency. If you want custom-font embedding (incl. boxpdf/inter), @pdf-lib/fontkit comes along for the ride and is lazy-loaded only when you embed a non-standard font.

Cloudflare Workers

Both the core and the boxpdf/inter subpath are verified to run on Cloudflare Workers without nodejs_compat or any WASM flag. Drop it into a worker handler:

import { Hono } from "hono";
import { PDFDocument, StandardFonts } from "pdf-lib";
import { cleanTheme, renderFlow, text, vstack } from "boxpdf";

const app = new Hono();

app.get("/receipt.pdf", async (c) => {
  const pdf  = await PDFDocument.create();
  const font = await pdf.embedFont(StandardFonts.Helvetica);
  const bold = await pdf.embedFont(StandardFonts.HelveticaBold);
  const t    = cleanTheme(font, bold);
  await renderFlow(pdf, [
    text("Thanks!", t.type.h1),
    text("This PDF was generated at the edge.", t.type.body)
  ]);
  const bytes = await pdf.save();
  return new Response(bytes, { headers: { "content-type": "application/pdf" } });
});

export default app;

How it compares

	boxpdf	pdf-lib	@react-pdf/renderer	jsPDF
Declarative layout	✓	✗	✓ (JSX)	✗
Cloudflare Workers	✓	✓	✗ (fontkit WASM)	partial
Streaming output	✓ `streamFlow` (Web Writable, bounded memory)	✗	Node only	✗
Custom fonts	✓ via fontkit (lazy)	✓ via fontkit	✓	limited
Core bundle	~7 KB gz	~250 KB gz	~250 KB gz	~80 KB gz
JSX runtime conflict	none	n/a	requires React	n/a

Sizes are approximate. Measure yourself.

Memory bench

Peak heap during render. 50 lines of text per page. Each measurement runs in its own subprocess. @react-pdf/renderer uses Standard Helvetica (no font embedding) to match the boxpdf paths.

Peak heap during render across page counts for streamFlow, renderFlow, and @react-pdf/renderer

Pages	streamFlow	renderFlow	@react-pdf/renderer	Output
50	12.8 MB	31.7 MB	160.8 MB	70 KB
250	15.4 MB	91.1 MB	643.1 MB	347 KB
500	18.7 MB	120.8 MB	1,219.9 MB	693 KB
1000	25.4 MB	219.6 MB	2,292.6 MB	1.4 MB

Bench source: scripts/bench-memory.ts. Design doc: docs/design/streaming.md.

Shipped in 1.4

✓ Box layout DSL: vstack, hstack, text, image, hline, vline, spacer, flex, keepTogether
✓ Padding, margin, background, border, borderRadius, flex-grow, justify, align
✓ Flex-shrink with whitespace-only wrapping (opt in to mid-word break or ellipsis)
✓ Word-wrap, ellipsis, multi-line text with maxLines
✓ Themes: clean, stripe, editorial, brutalist
✓ Multi-page flow with header, footer, PageContext
✓ Links (PDF annotations), text decorations, document metadata
✓ loadFont (URL, bytes, base64, data URL), embedInter, loadImage helpers
✓ boxpdf font add CLI bundles any TTF as base64 bytes for loadFont
✓ Tabular numerals on Inter for money columns (embedInter(pdf, { tabularFigures: true }))
✓ First-class table() primitive and svgPath() node
✓ Debug overlay, formatCurrency, defineStyles
✓ Verified end-to-end on Cloudflare Workers (core and Inter path)
✓ Streaming page-at-a-time output via streamFlow. Peak heap stays flat at any page count.

Declarative PDFsthat run anywhere.

What's in the box

Runs at the edge

Flex-ish layout, no coordinates

Streaming output

Four named themes

Multi-page flow

Bring your own fonts

Hyperlinks, decorations, metadata

Debug overlay

Tiny, tree-shakable

Four named themes

Template gallery

Install

Cloudflare Workers

How it compares

Memory bench

Shipped in 1.4

Declarative PDFs
that run anywhere.